Archive for April 2014
Where Is It: 230 miles south of Portland, OR. Note that there’s very little cell coverage in the park, and the nearest gas stations are 35 miles away in Chiloquin or Prospect, OR.
The Birth: From Crater Lake National Park.com:
William Gladstone Steel, the father of Crater Lake National Park, devoted his life and fortune to the establishment and management of Crater Lake National Park. He had been preoccupied with Crater Lake since 1870 when he was a sixteen year old boy in Kansas. He learned of Crater Lake by reading a newspaper that was use to wrap his lunch. Two years later he moved to Oregon and in 1885 he and a druggist named John Beck joined a group headed for Crater Lake.
When the two men, Steel and Beck finally spotted the lake, the water was so blue it startled them. “All ingenuity of nature seems to have been exerted to the fullest capacity to build a grand awe-inspiring temple the likes of which the world has never seen before,” said Steel. His involvement with Crater Lake covered 49 years. After it was made a national park, he realized his work had just begun.
In his efforts to bring recognition to the park, he participated in lake surveys that provided scientific support. He named many of the lake’s landmarks, including Wizard Island, Llao Rock, and Skell Head.
Steel’s dream was realized on May 22, 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill giving Crater Lake national park status. And because of Steel’s involvement, Crater Lake Lodge was opened in 1915 and the Rim Drive was completed in 1918.
Size: 183,224 acres
# Visitors: 94,048 visitors in 2013. Peak attendance was in August.
Choices: From Gorp.com:
Take in the beauty of Crater Lake at more than 20 scenic overlooks along 33-mile Rim Drive. A seven-mile spur road departs from east Rim Drive, providing access to the Pinnacles Overlook and Lost Creek Campground.
From mid-October until mid-June, the north entrance and Rim Drive are closed to the public due to deep snow and ice buildups along the road. Rim Drive around the east side of the lake can be closed earlier than mid-October and may not open until July. Deer and other wildlife crossing the road and icy conditions at any time of the year can be hazardous to drivers. In winter, the closest available gas stations are in Prospect and Chiloquin, both approximately 40 miles from Rim Village and Park Headquarters.
Fees: $10 for a 7 day pass.
Staying There: The Park has 2 campgrounds that are open May – October. There are 2 private lodges in the Park as well.
Contact Info:
P.O. Box 7
Crater Lake, Oregon 97604
(541) 594-3000
Current Issues: According to HeraldandNews.com, the snow pack this year on April 7 is only 66″, versus 120″ in a normal year.
Photo: Shane Dignum. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 12/22/13.
Photo posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 3/18/14.
Ermine. From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s website.
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National Park Service: Crater Lake National Park
Great Photos of the World: Crater Lake
Cherry Blossoms are almost in full bloom on the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, DC. This weekend will be the perfect time to check them out! Photo: Andrew S. Geraci. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 4/10/14.
The headline is supposed to tell you why the story is important to you. Read the headline, and you should have a sense of what happened. Why you should read the story.
Sometimes headlines can be misleading, though. Wednesday morning, I got an email from Mom with this subject line:
I AM FINE!
What did I instantly know? That she was NOT fine.
Or perhaps her definition of “fine” has gotten a bit slippery of late.
Mom had trouble sleeping last night … well, she had trouble while sleeping, actually. She fell out of bed, lost her battle against gravity, and cut herself seriously when she bonked her head on the hardwood floor.
Luckily, she was prepared for just such an odd event. She pressed the button on her Lifeline necklace, and the police were contacted. They were at her door directly, called the ambulance, and they had her in the emergency room quickly.
7 stitches later, she was (almost) as good as new.
The story here, though, is that Lifeline was exactly what she needed. She had begun the service 3 years ago when she concluded it was time to have that safety net to help her whenever she might need it.
And last night was that night.
If you have loved ones that might need emergency help when they’re unable to make it to a phone, then they need Lifeline. If you live thousands of miles away like I do – or just hundreds of miles away like my sister – then your loved ones need Lifeline.
While Mom was in the emergency room, Lifeline called Mom’s designated numbers to tell both my sister and I what happened. Unfortunately, we didn’t answer our cellphones at 2am … but we both got calls. I first got word from Mom’s email, which I saw shortly after 6am … and it was then I knew that no matter what she might claim, she was not fine. Not really.
But the Lifeline worked, and she was OK. And that’s a wonderful thing.
2006
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Lifeline Medical Alert
When She Calls
Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park. Oolah Valley offers hidden delights to the intrepid hiker willing to explore off the beaten path. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 4/5/14.
Photo: Robb Hannawacker, NPS. Posted by the US Department of the Interior on Tumblr, 4/7/14..
(Photo courtesy of Michael Kelley)
“I had no intention of it being this crazy thing,” says Kelley about his image, which went viral after he posted it Monday on Reddit’s aviation subcategory. “It just got shared over and over.” The image is a compilation of 75 different pictures that Kelley made during the course of a eight-hour shoot on Sunday, March 31. He didn’t include every single plane that he took pictures of taking off, omitting some kinds of planes that showed up over and over again. The image represents take offs from two different runways at LAX. “I was up until four in the morning on Sunday night and then woke up on Monday morning and continued to work on it,” says Kelley, spending about eight hours total in post processing. “The final image was 75 layers in Photoshop… so it was pretty significant in terms of staring at the screen with the pen tool.” He’s still not quite sure why the image went viral. “It makes people happy, it’s colorful… it’s interesting,” ponders Kelly. “It’s a pretty simple thing to digest.” For all the complexity of the process, the picture clearly and simply tells the story of a day on the runway. Michael Kelley is a Los Angeles based photographer specializing in architecture. Prints of this image and others are available here.
The Milky Way, as seen near Butterfield Pass in the BLM-managed Sonoran Desert National Monument.
This area is about 35 air miles from Phoenix, and the glow from the city is visible to the north. However, the overhead stars and southern horizon are dark enough to clearly see the Milky Way, which makes a great backdrop to the charismatic saguaros. Photo: Bob Wick, BLM Wilderness Specialist. Posted by the US Department of the Interior on Tumblr, 4/3/14.
A day of beginnings. A day when you start fresh with uncut wood, clean floors and an empty workbench.
So, what should I make?
For me, I always have to start by emptying my scrap bucket. This is the wood that’s too small to make anything … and large enough that it will burn well to cook pizza. It hurts to throw away endcuts, like that hard maple piece on top. That’s about $12 retail, rendered useless by the “checking,” or splitting from the end as the wood dried. Luckily, I didn’t pay retail.
The stock is selected … ready for processing.
One of my traditions is to tape the plans of the project I’m making onto the shop cabinets.
The days are good when the saw looks like this.
And the floor, too!
For this project, I need to make another jig … in this case, to help me make mitered corners for the project.
Picture frames on an easel stand, coming soon!
Yosemite Valley after a fresh snowfall, March 2014. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 4/3/2014.
Buying hardwood isn’t as simple as buying a 2×4 at your favorite lumber yard. Here’s the lingo:
First, a 2×4 probably will not be 2″ x 4″ when you buy it. The board did start out that size, actually, but it was cut and sanded to make the finished board 1-1/2″ x 3-1/2″. That same principle applies to all lumber: a smooth 1″ x 6″ is actual 3/4″ x 5-1/2″.
You can buy lumber rough, with no sanded smooth faces or cut smooth edges. It will be rough & splintery. In most lumberyards, though, softwood is sold after it is sanded smooth on all 4 sides. Hardwood is generally sanded smooth on the top and bottom faces of the board.
You can also buy hardwood “SL1E,” meaning that one edge of the board is a straight line, ready for immediate, further processing directly on your table saw. Most hardwood is sold “S2S SL1E,” meaning that the top and bottom of the board is sanded smooth, and one edge is straight. The other edge will be rough, which is OK, because that’s the edge that you will cut off when you cut the board on the table saw.
If you buy the wood cheap, though, you’ll get it rough on all 4 edges. That means you need a way to straighten and smooth the wood. You’ll need a handplane (if you’re dedicated) or either a jointer or electric planer (my choice) to smooth the top and bottom faces of the board. To straighten an edge of the board, you’ll need a shop-made jig. A jig is a tool that you make to help you repeat a process in the shop. In this case, the jig will allow me to straighten rough lumber into usable stock with one straight edge.
The problem is that hardwood often comes with rough edges. When you have a rough edge, you can’t make a reliable, straight and square cut.
This straightening jig holds the rough-edged board as you send it through the table saw. As seen here, the left edge of the jig will slide along the table saw fence to provide a square edge as a guide …
… allowing the blade to cut the board, as close as possible to the opposite, rough edgee. You’re left with a smooth face, suitable for further processing on the saw.
Here’s a properly straightened board, with that new straight edge up against the fence of the table saw.
There’s a reason for the blade guard: leave it on the saw. Keep your hands and fingers away from the spinning blade. Seriously.
Here are the smaller boards cut from the straightened board … which will eventually bcome a cutting board very like the one used by the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, on her TV show.
